Posted: 10/12/2011 at 3:49pm | IP Logged

The Coming Temple of His Glory

By Duane Stewart

          In beginning this writing a few words come to our mind that we must consider and have understanding of the impact of there meanings:

1. Zion = a fortress wherein David restores the wilderness Tabernacle back to Israel, the tent in which the glory of God rested. It also speaks of the spiritual people of God wherein His kingdom abides as the true church in the earth. The Greek word Sion means an elevated place and speaks of those who are spiritually birthed to become those of the throne-room authority. This is God’s dwelling place on earth as He dwells within the souls of man.

2. Jerusalem = a word meaning possession of peace, God’s holy city that types for us the church of today. It is within this city that the new covenant is written upon the hearts of the people and therein it is called a city of truth and God’s holy mountain Zech. 8:2-3, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am zealous for Zion with great zeal; with great fervor I am zealous for her. Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, the Mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain”. It is also declared that a new nature comes from within her as she is a resurrected soul that becomes the expression of the word of God. Herein Zion and Jerusalem becomes the apple of God’s eye.

Zech. 2:7-8 speaks, “Up Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. For thus says the Lord of Host: He sent me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye”.

          Seeds that have been planted among the Christian community over the generations of time are now producing the fruits thereof. These fruits which are now manifesting in a full measure are those fruits which are bringing much trouble to that which is called the church of today. Even as declared by God, a judgment is coming forth as the results of rebellion even as it existed among the general populace of Judah and Jerusalem. This time of trouble expressed itself as chaos reigned. This chaos also reigns today as spiritual immature Christians are taking the place of leadership in promoting policies that bring iniquity to the forefront as they try to lead the people. These leaders are those who lead without true direction, while changing abruptly and without apparent reason, having a nature of one without the Holy Spirits leadership. In this we have what the world is calling the church. Christian communities that are walking in the increasing darkness of today, a people that are without any God given spiritual honor, to now receive the coming judgments of God.

          Note that the famine which exist today, exist because of a people that have not an understanding of the word of God, and it continues to exist because rebellion against that word brings forth the spiritual lack of Godly leadership. Amos 8:11-12 declares, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wonder from sea to sea, from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it”. Why is it that such a famine is now present, generally speaking, among those of the Christian community? As we hear from Isaiah, the prophet, the church of today finds itself being ruled over by those who, spiritually speaking, lack the spiritual qualifications to lead God’s people. These are those who remain spiritually infantile, immature and weak, such as we see it manifesting among the ministry of today. Isa. 3:4-5 speaks, “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them, the people will be oppressed, every one by another and every one by his neighbor; the child will be insolent toward the elder, and the base toward the honorable”.

          The greater fulfillment of these above verses are squarely placed upon the Christian community of today because they have engrafted among themselves those who are schooled more in societies mind-sets while having no insight as to God’s form for spiritual success. As business minded individuals, these spiritually immature leaders find that numbers and payroll are far more important than a spiritually mature group of people. These have an absence of people who are beginning to be move in the gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit, to finally become the manifested righteousness of the Lord. In this the church, typed by Jerusalem and Judah, must face a certain truth. Isa. 3:8-9, “For Jerusalem stumbled, and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory. The look on their countenance witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought evil upon themselves”. A time of judgment always comes because of the rebellion as it manifest from the people. But, even among all this spiritual darkness that covers the earth and the minds of the people, God always has for Himself a people, those who remain righteous. Their righteousness is not a righteousness that comes from the results of obeying man’s order of laws, but is the righteousness that comes only through the cross of Jesus and obedience to God’s word. (Read Isa. 1:2-20).

          Isa. 3:10-12 states, “Say to the righteous, that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked!! It shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people (the church), children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people! Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths”. What is it that God desires from His chosen people? In His desire, what is it that God is willing to do and complete in His people? Remember, God is building for Himself a house to dwell in. This is a house made up of His people, a house with the heart of God to manifest the glory of God’s presence and nature throughout all generations and ages, eternal without end. This house shall be exalted above every nation and kingdom in that all other nations shall come to His abiding presence. Herein, the nations shall learn the ways of God as they begin to walk in God’s paths. Isa. 2:2-4, “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”.

          With most of the Christian community in the position of having lost their way, God speaks and He acts to bring forth a church without spot or wrinkle, or having any such stain. Why, could it not be that His great love for His church moves Him toward this redemption? Eph. 5:25b-27, “…just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish”. Note the word sanctify being used, a word as coming from the dictionary to mean “to make holy, to be set apart as holy and consecrated. To be free from sin and become productive of spiritual blessings”. This is that work of the Holy Spirit as He dwells in a people’s life, releasing the work of the cross unto all who ask, with it taking affect through the person’s submission to the word of God as it works out our complete salvation. Herein, this same Holy Spirit brings deliverance through judgment and spiritual burnings as God exercises His wrath upon all His enemies. In this, the church is purified and birthed into that Zion dwelling people of God, a people who now can stand in God’s holy presence to manifest His nature.  Isa. 4:2-6 declares, “In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious; and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped. And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy – everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering. And there shall be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain”.

          Where is such a place according to that which is quoted above? Where have the people of God gone? Have they not, for the most part, all scattered and run after their own ways? In this, have they not become captives to carnal, fleshly mind-sets while declaring themselves to be and having the ways of God? Where is the true knowledge of revelation as given to His people by the Holy Spirit? Isaiah declares the truth that also applies to the Christian community of today in saying in Isa. 5:13, “Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge (therefore they live in darkness); their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst”. These conditions now exist among the church of today because perverted mind-sets have become the major influence among most of these church going people. These perverted leaders are declaring a gospel other than that which is written and ministered by Christ Jesus on His journeys and the acts of the powerful early church. Today’s leadership have been schooled in the art of building large prosperous church’s while they are forsaking the need for God’s divine order, His government, while not allowing Him to be the leader of the church. These see only numbers as being more valuably than quality, spiritually mature Christ centered people. These childish leaders are of a purpose driven mind-set that desires to achieve carnal success at the expense of the spiritual mature people who are receiving the mind of Christ which is to be manifested through the people. The need for Christ’s presence and nature working among and in the people has lost its value in manifesting the expression of God among them. Therefore a call, a cry does come forth through God’s true prophets for a restoring of that which David’s Tabernacle represents. Acts 15:16-17, “After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does all these things”. This scripture declares that it is God who shall rebuild and not man, a meaning that God shall take out of the hands of carnal minded ministries the people of God and return them back to the people of His glory. This is a people who shall become the visible manifestation of an invisible God.

          Is now not the time to retake the land lost by today’s lukewarm church? Is it not time to be restored to the mind-set of a now God who is fulfilling all those promises given to His people? The promise of restoring His tabernacle within His people is that the glory of God might manifest itself again in leading His people. No longer having babes and children who lead God’s people to destruction, but a ministry of spiritual leadership, that causes a people to spiritually grow up, a ministry of equipping the saints in edifying the people into the knowledge of God’s Son unto perfection. Eph. 4:12-15, “For the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness (speaking of sophisticated cunning, unscrupulous conduct, evil treachery, deceptive scheming, arrogant shrewdness, and sly arrogance) of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ”.

          Again, coming forth is God’s call for a people to become the temples of God, which we are, becoming a restored and glorious state of manifestation, a state wherein the world will recognize a church full of power and glory that again glorifies God and not man. A church likened unto Moses and the children of Israel when the Tabernacle and the Ark were built to manifest and for them to be led by God’s glory. Exd. 40:34-38, “Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses (the type of the law) was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in all their journeys. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys”. Is not the church of today called to be the temple of God which He is building for Himself a dwelling place? A people who are growing up spiritually to become that united place of God’s glory and His resting place. I Cor. 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you”, Eph. 2:19-22, Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit”. Can we not see the need for restoration? In this we look not for another, for He has even now come to build up His temple and occupy it with all His glory, the gathering of the saints as heaven and earth are to come together to be as one.

Duane Steward
duanestewart40@wildblue.net

Posted: 10/12/2011 at 8:57pm | IP Logged

We are in a transition or shift from most of the church believing in a literal temple being restored, but little by little they are going to see that it is all spiritual...a Spiritual temple...living stone upon living stone being built a spirtual house 1 Peter 2

Its amazing how full these literalist churches are , but they think us, spirit filled fullness people, are off, but God will have His way little by little we are going to be manifested in the earth and all nations and people will eventually join in

Posted: 10/13/2011 at 9:58am | IP Logged

TY Jesus,

this is right on time and exactly what is going on, much confirmation in what I confronted the money changers with.

Peace to all and may the Temple of His Glory be manifested.

Amen.